


Serpent of July

by orphan_account



Series: Serpent of July [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:48:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Loki came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serpent of July

Fire. Bright white flame. It cracks through the essence of their surroundings, a small sliver of reality in a world of pretty illusions. And then a loud noise like the wind and the earth all moaning together. The ice won't hold. The forest will burn. He turns his eyes about him. Laufey's hand is engulfed in the flame, the light that renders all else dark. Swirling clouds of smoke and the unsavoury taste of blood rises like a mist in the air. There is no ground. There is no sky. The world has shifted. There are stars and colors and darkness all swirling around them and yet remaining still.

He is not ready, he thinks. Should Laufey deceive him, he is not ready. This time he will die. His ravens caw. Then in the mist that is darkness and light, and in the pain too, he discerns something taking shape into Laufey's palm. A something- that's good. What poor misshapen creature should now come into existence? It rises steadily, unfolds like a thick cloud of ink in water. And Laufey's face, it is still sneering in the half-light. A soft, deceptively beautiful smile with eyes narrowed in pleasure. An engineer at work. A slave playing god. It is too late. Too late. Odin can sense it- the binding that will render this two beings interchangeable. The magic that will bring them to eternity both. No, he cries. Laufey, no.

The world goes silent.There is nothing around them, only vacuum. A sudden one, too. He strives with all of his powers so they won't be torn asunder from within. The ground is shaking. Then a soft ruffle like a breeze. A slight sway. They sway with it and change. Then the light subsides in so that for a few mere seconds one gets the feeling that there is absolute darkness here in this place. And from this, a being stands in Laufey's palm. He cannot tell what it is, only that wild patterns swirl in loops and lines like ghosts on its body, aflame with magic like the dying embers of the hearth.

Laufey is still smiling, as if nothing happened. Odin waits. Perhaps this too will be blown to smithereens and go into the cosmos seeking other sentient beings to latch onto them like a parasite. If this should happen, Odin will stop trying. But then, the fire within the creature goes out. Blown like a candle and he can see it clearly. It staggers miserably. It's crimson eyes unaccustomed to the light fluttering open and shut as it brings its hands into view and inspects the magic ebbing away from the creases and the scars of its flesh. Like a green cloud fleeing for somewhere else. It's a child, a very young one. With a soft tuft of black hair and two horns thrusting upwards proudly from its forehead. Blue. Grey in this light, Odin thinks. He is crying. Why did it have to be a child?

“Lodurr, you have deceived me” he says.

Laufey turns. He does not smile. “You said it could be anything”

“Anything but a Jotun” he argues.

“What difference does it make? Perhaps, if you are lucky, it will die within the night”

“Perhaps” he says.

The child staggers again- pulled down from the weight of its horns. The world doesn't seem so light anymore. It lays in the palm of his father feeling exhausted. Shapes, shadows, more shadows, cold, warm, air. Sleep and reality. My father of the snow, it thinks, God sounds disappointed. And what is this-colorful, playful, deeply embedded in its skin. It dies when you touch it. The heat goes away. It was a loop on his chest, now its a bracelet around his arm. Now its nothing. It went away. It smiles. Speech, it thinks. But when it opens its mouth nothing comes out. His father of the snow is leaving. A hand is on his shoulder, then the world seizes to be.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a longer series that deals with the various reincarnations of the gods through continuous cycles of death and rebirth.
> 
> For illustrations here:
> 
> http://the-pleasures-of-reading.tumblr.com/post/53133472918/little-update
> 
> http://the-pleasures-of-reading.tumblr.com/image/51673952778
> 
> http://the-pleasures-of-reading.tumblr.com/image/51570205018


End file.
